Every Cloud
by Two Hours' Traffic
Summary: Nessie's stubbornness has left her grounded, but being grounded means she gets a couple of hours alone with her dad. What do they say about linings of clouds? Sometimes, punishment isn't so bad.


Carlisle was a little stressed out.

Today was the day that he had been planning for ages.

Recently, we hadn't been doing very much as a family. Bella and I were still getting used to looking after Renesmee, as was everyone else. Carlisle had been working overtime at the hospital, and had decided with Esme that we all needed to spend some quality time together.

Said time had been scheduled. We were going to the biggest bookstore in the area before catching a movie. Let it be noted that it had taken, quite literally, hours to decide which film to see, but we'd finally found one that made everyone happy.

Now all we needed was to get out the door.

Carlisle was getting frustrated. "Movie starts at two, kids. We are _not_ foregoing the bookstore, so if you're at all interested in Benjamin Button we need to be gone in four minutes."

"Be patient!" Rosalie's voice shrieked down the stairs. "I can't find my shoes and I refuse to go barefoot!"

"How many shoes do you own, Rose? Just put on a pair and get down here!"

"Unless you want me to change my outfit, I need _these_ shoes!"

"Well, could you hurry up? And where's Bella?"

I was sitting quietly on the stairs in the entrance hall. Alice and Esme were discussing reviews that they'd read of the movie and which books they wanted to buy at the store, while Jasper leafed lazily through a magazine. Emmett flicked a yoyo up and down. Carlisle was pacing, irritated.

"Edward!" Bella's frustrated scream pierced the awkward silence. "I need your help!"

I barrelled up the stairs and into Nessie's room, where my little girl and my wife were facing each other with opposite expressions. Nessie's mouth was curved into a cheeky smile, while Bella looked ready to throw something.

Bella sent me an angry thought. _Just look at what she's wearing!_

I suppressed a grin as I took in exactly what Ness had on. She had apparently dressed herself – I don't know who else would have put together a green T-shirt, a pink tulle ballet skirt, bright yellow tights, flowered gumboots and the eclectic assortment of beads which were adorning her wrists and neck. Her shirt had been a present from Emmett, and said "Trust me, I'm a ninja". When she'd first received it, it hadn't come off her for four days. The ensemble was topped off by a brightly polka-dotted sunhat.

She looked happy as anything.

Bella, on the other hand, was at the end of her tether. Were this the human that I had married, she would be a vibrant red by now. She looked at me imploringly. "Edward, _darling_, will you please tell your daughter that she's not going out with everyone today if she doesn't put some real, warm clothes on?"

Nessie fixed my gaze innocently. "Daddy, it's my favourite skirt."

"Couldn't you put some jeans on, love? You could keep everything else."

Even if our daughter was not the perfect combination of the two of us, her stubbornness was more resounding that any DNA test.

"But it's my favourite!" She turned to Bella. "Mama, please? I _want_ to wear it."

"Nessie, your mother's right. You need to be dressed properly. It's cold outside."

"No!"

Bella stepped in again. "Renesmee, I've told you you're not going unless you change. I'm not taking you out dressed as a ninja-ballerina."

"But this is my favourite skirt!"

"Change now."

Esme appeared silently at the door. "Everyone's in the cars, and your father is about to blow a fuse. Are you ready to go?"

Bella walked over to the door to join her. "Renesmee isn't coming unless she changes. Decide quickly, Ness."

It was odd to see my normally patient Bella so frustrated, but considering Nessie was shaking her head with her hands on her hips, I could understand.

She came over to me and linked her fingers through mine. Resting her cheek on my hip, she whispered, "I don't want to change. You'll stay home with me, won't you Daddy?"

_Can you stay with her, Edward?_ Esme asked. I nodded discretely.

"I don't really have an option, do I?"

Both my girls shook their heads. Bella came over, and ruffled Renesmee's hair before kissing me and leaving with Esme.

When did I sign up for missing out on doing things with my family because of a toddler's fashion decisions?

Nessie and I walked downstairs quietly, and stood in silence as the cars started up. A chorus of _bye, guys!_ set up as they drove off.

_Too bad, bro. We'll miss you!_

_I promise I'll do what I can. She'll be calm when she gets home. _

_Alice and I'll buy Ness tons of books, Edward. Don't worry. _

Siblings.

"I'm sorry, Daddy."

I turned to Renesmee, who was evidently feeling guilty.

"It's alright, baby. You're fine. Maybe you should just do what your mother says next time."

Nessie shrugged her shoulders delicately. Then she turned to me, a look of curiosity on her face. "Daddy?" she began.

"Yes, angel?"

"What are we going to do now that Uncle Emmett and Uncle Jasper and Aunty Alice and Aunt Rose and Grandma and Grandpa and Mum are gone?"

I grinned. "Well, baby, maybe we could do craft. Or we could read or something."

"Can we have our own field trip to the mall?"

"Ness, you're not going out because you're not dressed properly. Just because Mum's gone doesn't change anything. You'd freeze outside. We're staying inside unless you change."

"I'm not changing."

"That's what I assumed. So what do you want to do?"

"Can we have our own field trip at home?"

"How do you mean?"

"You know... we could read, like they're going to do at the bookstore. And then we could watch a movie, like they're going to do at the mall. But we could choose. And we'd be allowed to talk without being told to be quiet, because no-one else would be around."

Her eyes were huge with excitement. She began bouncing up and down eagerly. "Oh, please Daddy? Can we?"

I smiled. "I guess so, sweetheart. What do you want to read?"

"I don't know. We can find a book in my room!"

She grabbed my hand and pulled me back up the stairs, and over to her bookshelf. It had been lovingly painted by Rosalie one day, and so was covered in flowers and stars. Nessie had added to the artwork herself, and so impromptu love hearts and people were scattered over it as well.

The shelves were bursting with books. There was everything from Shakespeare to Enid Blyton, taking a detour past Dickens and J.K. Rowling. Although Ness was capable of reading to herself, Bella and I had decided that we wanted to read to her every night before she went to bed. She got to decide what was being read, and she often decided on children's books. Apparently, they were more exciting.

Renesmee perused the shelves for a couple of minutes before grabbing a book called Stories To Eat With A Banana. This book was the first in a series that had been a discovery of Rosalie's, a series about a 'phaery' called Phredde, who made friends with an Australian girl named Prudence. They have various adventures together, always involving the clash between the 'normal' world and the supernatural. The irony was not lost on me.

They were, however, very funny, and Nessie loved to have them read to her.

We sat in the armchair in the corner of her room and read the entire book. Before our daughter, I'd never realised that reading _to_ someone was such a great experience. It's great to get a reaction, to hear laughing or crying, to be pressured into reading every word. Ness was a little dictator when it came to skipping bits. If you missed out so much as a sentence, she'd be tapping you on the shoulder and saying, "Daddy, you missed that line".

When it was finally over, Ness stood up. "I think that we should have lunch, and then we can watch the movie," she said determinedly.

"What do you want for lunch?" I asked as we walked down the stairs again.

"I'd like... fairy bread. Like Phredde has. Can I have fairy bread?"

Although Renesmee certainly had a love for vampire food, there were certain human foods that made her very happy. And for some reason, bread spread with butter and sprinkled with Hundreds and Thousands were one of those foods. It looked like an explosion in a candy factory and smelled like a bucket of sugar, but apparently it tasted good.

I put together some fairy bread for her, and watched as smiling, she crunched her way through it.

"Do you want some, Daddy?"

"Daddy can't eat human food. You know that, sweetheart."

"Yes you can! Uncle Jasper ate a piece of my apple the other day."

"Why?"

"Aunt Rosalie dared him to."

"But if I eat your food, it will make me very sick. I don't want to. But thank you for sharing."

"Alright. It's your funeral."

"Renesmee!"

"Uncle Emmett says it all the time."

Whoever said that all children don't remember very much had obviously never met Nessie.

When she had finished her bread and I had looked away as she mopped up the remaining sprinkles, we went into the 'chilling' room. Rosalie and Emmett had decided that we needed a special room for chilling, as opposed to the living room, which was for relaxing. Apparently, there's a difference...

The Chilling Room was home to the monstrous Cullen DVD collection, which took up an entire wall of shelving. Our DVD collection rivalled that of any respectable library. It was even sorted by genre. Nessie made a beeline for her bookcase, the second from the end. Once again, she perused before making her selection.

It looked like we were going to be spending the next hour and a half watching The Lion King. Not a bad movie, as movies go, but hardly Benjamin Button.

Ness inserted The Lion King into the DVD player and flicked a couple of buttons on the sound system before making her way over to where I was lying on the couch. She climbed up onto my knee and made herself comfortable before pressing play.

Having seen the movie countless times meant that she was familiar with the music, and so sang along every time a song came on. Her childish voice picked out the melodies as she followed Simba's journey. When Mufasa died, she rolled over onto her side and pressed her cheek against my chest. I was surprised to feel tears leaking through my shirt.

"Nessie, are you alright, love?"

She smiled sadly. "_I'm_ fine, Daddy. But Simba's not. His daddy went away. And now he has to leave his home. But he'll be happy at the end."

I wrapped an arm tightly around her as she sniffed.

By the end of the movie, Ness was happy again. Simba had defeated his cruel uncle, gotten back together with his girlfriend and there had been enough music and animals to last her an afternoon.

She turned to me excitedly. "What are we going to do _now_?"

Looking after a toddler is difficult. They're always looking for sources of entertainment. Looking wildly around the room, I spotted a Disney Princess jigsaw puzzle that Esme had bought for Nessie last week, but that she hadn't gotten around to doing yet.

"D'you want to do a puzzle?"

"Cool!"

We tipped all the pieces out of the box and organised them on the floor. When the edge pieces were in a pile, Nessie's deft fingers arranged them into the border. We were still slotting pieces in together when the others arrived home.

Bella flew into the room. "Oh, I missed you two!" she exclaimed, kissing both our heads. "Have you had fun, Renesmee?"

Ness nodded excitedly. "Yeah, it's been great. Daddy and I read a book, and then I had lunch and watched a movie and now we're doing this puzzle."

"Figures," came Emmett's voice from the door. "We leave you alone for a few hours, and without us you've been doing _jigsaw puzzles_."

Nessie looked at her uncle inquisitively. "What's wrong with jigsaw puzzles? I _like_ jigsaws."

Emmett grinned as he came over and tickled her. "So do I, Ness. But I thought you and your dad would be doing exciting things. Like... climbing Mount Everest or something."

"Don't be silly! I can't climb Mount Everest. It's the highest mountain in the world!"

"I'm sure you'll climb it one day, baby girl." Emmett swung her in circles and she giggled happily.

"Emmett, put her down!" Jasper called. "We need to deliver her new books."

"New books?" Nessie ran to the hallway and began reading out the titles excitedly.

I was left with Bella in the Chilling Room. "Did you have fun today?" I asked her quietly.

"Yeah, it was fun. As I said, I missed you though."

"Ditto."

I kissed her gently on the lips, and she smiled as she kissed me back. The house began to fill with noise as everyone else made their way in from the car. And then,

"Ew! Mum and Da-ad! Get a room!"

And Emmett's booming laughter echoed down the stairs.


End file.
